Karaoke Forums

That is why you have to hope for settlements, PEP is a small company with limited resources, something I have said for years. That is why you have not been able to resume production of new material. As time goes on unless you can get hosts to buy in to leasing GEM sets or convincing operator's or venue's to pay insurance premiums you are done. You have as much as admitted even if the pirates are guilty as sin, all they have to do is fight back. Sort of a guerrilla warfare, wearing you down and wasting what ever few resources you have left. One thing you forget Jim is if a person is sued they have the right to fight back, if you can't convince them to give up eventually you are going to lose, like you currently are. When it makes no sense to continue the fight at least legally isn't it time to move on? All you are going to achieve is bankrupting your little company. Not to mention you have the money you have to pay EMI by 2020 or you lose everything, right? Why shouldn't the pirates think they can beat the system, when places like the Federal 9th District Court throws out your claims? If the judge feels your suits are frivolous and without merit, I think that would encourage defendants to resist you. Just saying.

Well, since he's not a partner and apparently only on retainer or some other payment method, it sounds like HE gets paid whether people get sued or not.

_________________
DJ Don

What on earth are you talking about now?

Just what I have seen on this forum. That you settled with Sony, that you are making payments to them over a 5 year period, and that the security for the payments is the business. If I am wrong then someone correct me.

Well, if you see something on the internet, it must be true, right?

Jeebus.

We settled our dispute with Sony, yes.

There was a security interest given in our trademarks (not "the business"). The registration period for UCC-1 statements in North Carolina is 5 years regardless of the length of the contract. I assume you are getting this from Mr. Staley, but this is, yet again, another example of how he states things as fact that simply aren't so, and that he would have no way of knowing legitimately.

it does specifically say
"cash, equipment, fixtures, goods, inventory, accounts, receivables, general intangibles, deposit accounts, domain names, trademarks and copyrights."

so you can see why he would go that route.

_________________
Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Don't know about you, but my FIB-O-METER just pegged and "went to ELEVEN":
Let's see what is covered in the UCC-1 filing: Looks to me likes it's pretty much "the business".... (Except for payables... those get left behind... like when you sell assets to yourself...) Is there anything else that you can think of that is NOT part of "the business" Paradigm?

And another twist of the truth. The "length of time a UCC filing is effective" is in fact, 5 years. If the debt is not satisfied and/or terminated before the 5 years, it must be refiled.

So it's Harrington's "half truth" raising its ugly head again. Yes, Phoenix has "settled our dispute with Sony" but that doesn't mean that it's "paid in full" either. Suffice it to say that since the UCC filing is still effective and hasn't been terminated, it's a pretty sure bet that they are still paying on it. Now going into their 2nd year...

But yeah, if it's on the internet... from the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State... I would think it would be pretty much true...

That's what I'm talking about now, Jimbo!

Thank You Gentlemen.

OK, I see that. (I had forgotten about the exact language of the UCC-1, and didn't review it.)

But, once again, my point stands. That document says exactly zero about what is being secured and for how long.

As you know, I cannot comment on the settlement terms.

But have you considered that there is a stream of payments that we have fully acknowledged as going to Sony? (Specifically, its share of the HELP publishers' pool.) That those payments involve our collecting funds and remitting them quarterly? That Sony might want to have an easier time collecting if we failed to make the payments?

See, here is one indisputable fact: Mr. Staley knows nothing about the terms of the settlement agreement--or, at least, he couldn't know that unless he received information he is legally not allowed to have. I cannot imagine that anyone at Sony/EMI would share that information with him. So, his assumptions, based on his mortally flawed understanding of the law and his own deepest desires, are:

(1) That we owe Sony/EMI a huge amount of money;
(2) That what we owe is a payment for some supposed wrong we did to them; and
(3) That it is scheduled to be paid out over a five-year term (or more!).

He is asserting these assumptions as facts established by this document, when in fact they are just guesses, and the document can be fully explained by other circumstances. He desperately wants these assumptions to be true--or, at least, he desperately wants other people to believe them.

It's pretty much like when he desperately wanted people to believe that the karaoke tracks he made were individually watermarked, when they are not. He assumed that no one would have the wherewithal or motivation to check.

I am not prepared to call his statements about the settlement lies, because that would require that he intended to tell a falsehood. After all, if you believe what you're saying, it's not a lie. But his history and his naked, aggressive bias against us should counsel you not to follow him down rabbit holes. Better choice? Just tune him out entirely.

James, Sometimes telling half truths leads to the telling of near truths..... but not always whole truths. I would bet you are not telling us the whole truth under the protection of "privacy", which you have stated. So there is still considerable room for speculation, which is why this thread continues.

It's not a question of privacy. The terms of our agreement with Sony are confidential. I have a contractual obligation not to disclose the terms of the agreement. Mr. Staley chooses to exploit that fact and fill up the space with whatever his mind can dream up. I would love to be able to tell you those terms, if only for the purpose of showing that Mr. Staley is full of (@$%&#!).

What's genuinely unfortunate is that pretty much anybody else who engaged in those kinds of attacks--and that's what they are, attacks--would see their comments deleted by the administrators, if not being banned outright. But Mr. Staley gets treated with kid gloves because they like his anti-SC stance. I mean, what other poster would be allowed to call names in his signature line, without consequences?

So Jim you are collecting money and paying it to Sony. How does it feel to be the monkey and not the organ grinder? Collecting the pennies for Sony rather than Tony. One thing is for sure Jim you owe Sony enough money that you have to make payments you can't just write a check or you would have.

Please read carefully.

As I said, Sony is a participant in the HELP license publishers' pool. Every three months, we pay them a portion of the HELP license fees we collect, proportional to their ownership interest in the compositions on which our historical catalog is based.

And, by the way, paying the publishers a share of those fees was our idea.

Is the obligation to make royalty payments on your HELP licensing large enough to actually warrant granting a lien against all of Kurt Slep's personal property as well as the entire business?
If so, wouldn't that mean the rest of the income stream going to PEP from those licenses would be huge? Wouldn't there be a big enough pile of money left over to start production and simultaneously retain enough lawyers to sue the pants off of venues in every state to generate more HELP licenses?

If not, then wouldn't it make sense to stop selling HELP licenses so as to gain a release of that all encompassing lien? It seems to me a lien of that nature would be a real obstacle to acquiring operating capital, new investors, or even licensing from other publishers who would have no hope of securing their interests as second in line to that lien.
Why would a lawyer ever consider binding their client in such a way?

_________________
KNOW THYSELF

"the publishers" (plural) means there are more than just EMI/Sony..... (which you no doubt use to help pay off your debt)
And how much have you paid to Red Peters to date? Zero?
Tom Lehrer?
Paul Storm?
Rodney Carrington?

Oh, that's right.... you only pay those publishers that "request to participate" in your program.... which you don't tell them about...

FIB-O-METER says that the "document plainly states EXACTLY about what is being secured" in a convenient comma-separated list.
FIB-O-METER has detected a "sleight of mouth" since you just NOW stated you "cannot comment on the settlement terms" which means that any "HELP payments" are not part of your secured settlement.... but you certainly want to make it sound like it's a giant candybar-of-goodness that EMI can't resist.

"Mortally flawed?" They are more on target than you care to admit. But let's look at your statements:
Large enough to warrant a UCC filing that lists virtually every asset of PEP... and worthy of a lawsuit that spanned over 2 years to complete. No company goes through that much legal expense without a decent pot-o-gold at the end of your rainbow.
CRAP-O-METER red-lined on this one... Oh, I see how this works: If a "pirate" pays you, it's because they know they did wrong and settled with you it's because of the Fear of G-d that you've instilled in them with your righteous federal lawsuit machine for truth, justice and the American way. BUT if you are on the hook for infringement and you settled with EMI well, then... it's just a "simple misunderstanding" that you're paying for.... on an installment plan... nothing serious.... "these are not the droids you're looking for, move along."
And I can't think of a better way of illustrating this double standard with your own words:
I do believe you are paying them.... not the other way around.
Where did "or more!" come from? The deep dark recesses of your imagination or are you just adding a little something for dramatic effect? I don't really give a squat what the term is, but it's "coming 'round the bend on year #2" ain't it? And if your company is even half as successful as you repeatedly claim to be, there wouldn't be anything left to pay by now... So we'll keep an eye on the filing and see how long it takes until it disappears....
Broken record.... blah, blah, blah... word salad. "fully explained by other circumstances" sounds a lot like "alternative facts" doesn't it?
"Desperately?" Really? I don't believe I've ever "desperately" wanted anyone to believe anything that I have to say because I don't have any vested interest in lying to them. The problem you have is that what you say tends to go in circles and contradictions to what you make promises of. Liike "getting the band back together" or "Prime memberships" or just about everything else you've promised over the last 7 years or so. Whether you believe there is a lie or not is of no consequence to any single KJ on this forum or elsewhere --- I haven't sued any KJ and I certainly haven't sued their venues either. Unfortunately, you make promises you don't keep AND sue their venues too....

If you would have just added "believe me!" to the end of that statement, I would have mistaken you for President Trump. But more importantly, as you say, you "are not prepared to call his statements about the settlement lies" because you simply can't.

Perhaps a little off topic but I am curious to hear what Jim's opinion of a venue using a GEM series for a Karaoke Box type set up. I was recently in New York at one such venue and saw they were using GEM tracks and the bartender explained how they were legal etc. I asked how their system worked and they are using one computer with the tracks to serve the separate rooms. I didn't count but there were certainly at least 5. It would seem to me that one set would be required for each room. Jim?

I would think as long as different tracks are being played at any one time, it's ok. In other words, you can't have 5 instances of Picture playing at the same time, but you can have 5 different titles from the same collection playing at the same time. Wonder if the 'license' agreement addresses that. Of course, I can also see how that idea could be poo-poo'd because they can say 'we want money for each room'.

_________________
DJ Don

I wondered this myself... If you had a setup where you used cloud services, and were streaming from one set of files, even if it was in two locations, if it would be legal. Technically it's one instance, but it is being used by two different computers at two different locations. As long as the same exact song isn't played at the same time your only using one instance.

It's probably not, but I've always been curious.

Their contract forbids streaming...